Exclusive: Nadine Dorries reinstated as a Tory MP

Nadine Dorries has been given the Conservative whip back by Sir George Young, Coffee House can exclusively reveal. Sources in the Tory party tell me that the MP, who was suspended in November for appearing on the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, has just been told she can now return from exile.

This is a huge relief for many Conservative MPs, who have been growing increasingly worried that the continuing absence of the Tory whip was beginning to look vindictive and sexist, and risked pushing the Mid-Bedfordshire MP into the arms of UKIP. As David Davis argued this weekend, Nadine Dorries is a working class woman who grew up in council housing and has been treated badly by the Tory leadership, while Jesse Norman is an Old Etonian rebel who received a promotion. None of this helped the Tories with their women problem.

Dorries’ colleagues tell me that they have been sending her the whipping arrangements for each division so that she knows how to vote along the Conservative party line. But it was the threat that she might have defected to UKIP after the local elections which seems to have spooked the party leadership into reinstating Dorries, rather than this being the right thing to do. That it took whispers about Nigel Farage and headlines in the newspapers to change the minds of those at the top shows quite how panicked the party is about UKIP.

George Osborne was widely reported to have been resisting requests from the whips to end Dorries’ exile. He was angered by her ‘arrogant posh boy’ comments of last summer, although this was not the reason she was suspended. But if the leadership was to suspend every MP that called it names, Brian Binley would have lost the whip long ago for calling the PM a ‘chambermaid’ and a ‘caretaker’, and Tim Yeo would have found himself in hot water for asking whether the Prime Minister was a man or a mouse. The criticism I have heard repeatedly from backbenchers is that this looked like double standards. Dorries herself has pointed out over the past few months of estrangement that she missed no votes and that other colleagues seemed remarkably quick to criticise her while they were themselves abroad enjoying holidays.

Worse things happen at sea and in Westminster and it is right that Dorries has been restored to the Conservative fold at long last. She did not deserve to have been kept away for so long. The possibility that she could use a little-known party rule to reinstate herself without the leadership’s blessing will have concentrated whips’ minds, too. The leadership couldn’t have held out any longer without serious unrest in the party. The new parliamentary year means a fresh start.

Dorries is very popular with her colleagues, and this conflict needed a resolution soon, as it could have created a domino effect of MPs speaking out against the leadership, or even angry defections if she had been pushed too far. That the whips have decided to reinstate her will heal a wound not just for this particular MP, but for her colleagues, who were growing increasingly enraged on her behalf. It is a victory, but perhaps not one resulting from a great deal of common sense.

In the same article you refer to Nadine Sorties being “popular with her colleagues”, the “Tories women problem” and ND having been treated unfairly’, or at least more harshly than her male colleagues.

If she is popular with her colleagues, has been quietly kept informed by them of party voting retirements and is widely believed to have been harshly dealt with, then it would seem that any “women problem” does not exist in the party at large.
Maybe, the leadership is where the real women problem lies. Maybe No10 and the whips see women as window dressing, to be feted and promoted on the basis of their gender, but to be slapped back in to place if they get too lippy or step out of line.

FrankS

Why is having the whip withdrawn a punishment, why is having it restored a blessing? Just wondering.

Tim Reed

Neither UKIP nor Conservative supporters seem to think she’s much of an asset…

More importantly, when I die, can I come back as Isabel Hardman’s favourite cocktail dress?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004981542519 Tom Tom

she’s going to a cocktail party tonight

Hookeslaw

Dorries had the whip withdrawn for disappearing off up the jungle (from where she was swiftly evicted), not for silly remarks, Ms Hardman.
And she did so without telling the Chief Whip or her local association (which if nothing else makes her very rude)

Magnolia

Dorries had the whip withdrawn for being against gay marriage and for speaking out against abortion.
She’s not the right kind of woman apparently.

Hookeslaw

It was the jungle.

Fergus Pickering

Is this your idea or have you any evidence at all?

allymax bruce

Dorries probably will defect to UKIP, but that only happens if Cameron is ‘challenged’.
It would prosper the Conservative Party, if they moved Warsi into a ‘public perception’ role; the TV politics shows; she really comes across well.

BigNSM

You are joking about Warsi right. She’s awful and spouts complete garbage constantly

allymax bruce

Warsi will win you votes; both from women, (who aren’t as enamoured with the old Tory structures), and the upper middle class men, who are the remnants of the hard-working Labour Bliarites. You need to understand that, as the voters are more, and more disaffected, with voting, that ‘core’ voting base is increasing, decreasing. In other words, you need to begin to eat into your opponents, (Labour), core vote. And Warsi does that; especially with women, and hard working Bliarites; and this will take you into ‘uncharteded territory’ for Conservatives, in the North of England.

Fergus Pickering

I agree with you about the good Baroness. Helpful to have a NICE muslim aboard.

allymax bruce

Fergus, it’s less about religion, than it is about her personal appeal in her politics. She brings together Conservative values, but in popular perceptions; not the traditional Tory. She’s not a stuffed-shirt, but an example of trustworthy, straight-talking, honest politician. This is her personal appeal, and it rings a bell with the electorate; and very well in the North.

Russell

And the first thing she should do tomorrow morning is announce she is crossing the floor as a UKIP MP, to fully make her point with Cameron and the Conservative party.

Magnolia

Now that she’s brought the Eton boys to heel, there’s nothing to stop her defecting to UKIP, if she should so wish.

Fergus Pickering

It’s bopring, I now, but George didnt go to Eton. Still, he ought to have.

Magnolia

I should have written ‘the Oxford boys’.

Fergus Pickering

Yeah, but that doesn’t have any traction, does it, since people get to Oxford on merit? Oxford s like any other univrsity except that the students are cleverer..

Magnolia

Are you sure that young persons go to Oxford on merit?
I think their interview system is a ‘beauty’ pageant.

Fergus Pickering

Oh come, you know nothing about it, so what you think is of no consequence.

Magnolia

I know a lot about it but am unable to write about it here.

Fergus Pickering

Undercover agent, are you?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004981542519 Tom Tom

That is why your problem arose ? you could not write the exam paper so the interview was irrelevant

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004981542519 Tom Tom

You clearly have not been through it. Maybe it is your intellect that lacks beauty ?

Hookeslaw

He did not even go to the same posh public school as Farage, indeed I suspect his schools rank inferior to Farage’s on the poshness scale.

Given the tenor of this article and of another recent one its clear the Spectator has a woman problem.

Tim Reed

Yes – only this woman. Justifiably.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004981542519 Tom Tom

Just another London School. Did you go to school Hookie, or didn’t it have a name ?

Fergus Pickering

No it doesn’t. Dulwich, alma mater of Raymond Chandler and P G Wodehouse, is not particularly posh..

Hookeslaw

Maybe. Founded 1619? Member of the Eton group? It compares with St Pauls.
The sadly sarcastic point of course in relation to the suggestion for Dorries to join UKIP is that she would be leaping into the arms of another ‘posh boy’.

Fergus Pickering

What has the age of the foundation got to do with it? My very unposh school was far older than that.

Wessex Man

Yes of course but a much nicer people friendly arms and if she doesn’t want to leap into his she can leap into mine Hooky!

http://twitter.com/ITmeetsPolitics Philip Virgo

It was founded by the richest impresario of his day and has a long tradition of producing world class entertainers. Farage’s contemporaries included quite a number who are now well-known actors, authors, playrights and film producers. Perhaps that is why he is good at light entertainment. Now we will see what he is like at heavy duty leadership. Was Shackleton, (sidelined by Scott because he was not a team player, but a much better team leader), any more “posh” than Farage?

David Lindsay

UKIP only gets the attention that it does because it is posh. The public school media indulge their eccentric uncles in this way.

Wessex Man

oh dear, dear David is getting rather desperate now, ther I was thik zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Fergus Pickering

Cripes. The Diigger went to Eton. Now we know.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004981542519 Tom Tom

He could have been a fag…….then again, he is

2trueblue

Why? St Pauls is a perfectly respectable public school.

aron lipshitz

Harriet Harman went to St Pauls’ Girls

2trueblue

Osbourne went to St Pauls.

Thomtids

Girls’ School?

2trueblue

Engage brain, what do you think ? The boys school, founded in 1509, the Girls school was founded way later.

http://twitter.com/ITmeetsPolitics Philip Virgo

What does “respectable” mean in this context? Or are you are contrasting it with, for example, Harrow: the St Trinians of the public school world … or should that title go to …

2trueblue

Well known might be a better adjective.

Schadenfreuden

She wants to defect to UKIP, and had talks with them, but her area is still voting too highly Conservative to be a safe seat if the changed to UKIP. That’s why she waited until after the council elections before deciding. The stars are beginning to align though, it seems that the water level is building and like most things in politics once the damn bursts there’s going to be a torrent.

If UKIP can rollover their support and maintain it for at least the next 4 years then there wont be any stopping it.

John

Let UKIP have her. As a proven liar, she’s part of the reason our parliament is such a joke

This is someone who claimed she lied on her blog when questioned about expenses, then as soon as she that charge was dropped she claimed *that* was a lie. Has she no shame?

I simply have no time for MPs who think we, the public, are so f**king stupid that can say things like that and expect us not to question it.

Fergus Pickering

But most of them are proven liars over expenses. What makes her any worse?

Hookeslaw

‘most’? ‘liars’? ‘proven’?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004981542519 Tom Tom

Yes. Proven. Read the Documents.

Fergus Pickering

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Hookeslaw

I’m not sure I agree.

Taking Jacqui Smith as an example because it is one where I think it was indeed an absolute scandal and disgrace.

She declared her sisters house as her effective home and did spend more time there than in Reddich. This was approved by the fees office. She did not lie about it.

The fact that under the rules she was entitled to make most of the claims she did for the Reddich house does not excuse the fact that she did. She should not. But the rules allowed her to.

The small point I make is that it was the system which encouraged it.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004981542519 Tom Tom

No it did not. Brown left the system lax. Thatcher let the system be used to circumvent restrictions on raising MPs pay. The laxity did not “encourage” criminal behaviour it expected a standard of integrity sadly lacking

Wessex Man

so thats why her husband hired the adult movies, she was never home and he blamed us the electorate for not being there so claimed for them, I understand now!

telemachus

Only reason is to stop her declaring for UKIP

Emulous

I can see her plain talking and irreverence as a perfect complement to Nigel Farage.

David Lindsay

He wouldn’t have wanted here, any more than, in the end, Alan Sked wanted Theresa Gorman.

George_Arseborne

Running scared of UKIP, Tories in the Circus now as clown. What a shame that the UKIP now tell the Tories what to do. Hahahahaha!!!!

Chris lancashire

Is it too much to hope that this is the last we will hear about this silly, publicity chasing nonentity?

Are ‘you’ saying that she has earned money and not declared it for tax?
Are you saying that she is denying she appeared on IACGMOOH?
Or what?

Its not much use linking to the Telegraph since its behind a paywall. And I am not wasting one of my ‘free visits’. on Peter Oborne.

Tim Reed

Are you being deliberately obtuse or what?

She appeared on the show, earned a fee, and according to a quick bit of research on the register of member’s interests by the Telegraph’s Peter Oborne, she has yet to declare the sum received – as required by all MPs.

It’s spelled out very clearly in the brief quote from the article, reproduced above. No need to waste a ‘free visit’.